The first-ever scientific study that analyzes whether the US is a democracy, rather than an oligarchy, found the majority of the American public has a “minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy” compared to the wealthy.

The study, due out in the Fall 2014 issue of the
academic journal Perspectives on Politics, sets out to answer
elusive questions about who really rules in the United States.
The researchers measured key variables for 1,779 policy issues
within a single statistical model in an unprecedented attempt
“to test these contrasting theoretical predictions” –
i.e. whether the US sets policy democratically or the process is
dominated by economic elites, or some combination of both.

"Despite the seemingly strong empirical support in previous
studies for theories of majoritarian democracy, our analyses
suggest that majorities of the American public actually have
little influence over the policies our government adopts,”
the researchers from Princeton University and Northwestern
University wrote.

While “Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic
governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and
association,” the authors say the data implicate “the
nearly total failure of 'median voter' and other Majoritarian
Electoral Democracy theories [of America]. When the preferences
of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups
are controlled for, the preferences of the average American
appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically
non-significant impact upon public policy."

The authors of “Testing Theories of American Politics:
Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens” say that even
as their model tilts heavily toward indications that the US is,
in fact, run by the most wealthy and powerful, it actually
doesn’t go far enough in describing the stranglehold connected
elites have on the policymaking process.

“Our measure of the preferences of wealthy or elite Americans
– though useful, and the best we could generate for a large set
of policy cases – is probably less consistent with the relevant
preferences than are our measures of the views of ordinary
citizens or the alignments of engaged interest groups,” the
researcher said.

“Yet we found substantial estimated effects even when using
this imperfect measure. The real-world impact of elites upon
public policy may be still greater.”

They add that the “failure of theories of Majoritarian
Electoral Democracy is all the more striking because it goes
against the likely effects of the limitations of our data. The
preferences of ordinary citizens were measured more directly than
our other independent variables, yet they are estimated to have
the least effect.”

Despite the inexact nature of the data, the authors say with
confidence that “the majority does not rule -- at least not
in the causal sense of actually determining policy
outcomes.”

“We believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful
business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans,
then America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously
threatened,” they concluded.